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Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for New York City Mayor, was identified as “black or African American” in a 2009 Columbia University application, but the New York Times reported Thursday, despite the fact that he says he is not black.
According to the Times, the internal data comes from a leak database of past Columbia applications, which was part of a recent hack targeting Ivy League schools.
Mamdani, a senior at the time in high school, also checked out “Asians” and reportedly wrote about it in “Ugandan” for additional background. He was ultimately unacceptable to Colombia, despite his father being a professor at an elite school.
Mamdani, now 33, told The Times, which identifies him as an “African-born American,” and said checking multiple boxes was an effort to reflect his “complex background” and would not gain an advantage in the competitive admissions process.
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Students will be seen on April 14, 2025 at the Columbia University campus in New York City. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
But at the time, Columbia, like many elite universities, used race-conscious admissions, a system that the Supreme Court abolished in 2023.
“Though these boxes are constrained,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani said in his time that he did not recall identifying him as black or African-American, apart from the forms of these universities.
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Rep. Zoran Mamdani, the mayoral candidate for New York, speaks to his supporters during the election night gathering. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
His parents are both Indian. His father, Professor Mahmoud Mamdani of Colombia, has lived in East Africa for generations, but Mamdani said that his native African group and family had no marriages.
Mamdani leaned into South Asian and Muslim identities on the campaign trail. In his June speech on Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, he also highlighted his African roots. “I was born in Kampala, Uganda… I was given my middle name, Kwame, by my father, who I named after Ghana’s first prime minister.”
President Donald Trump raised Mamdani at a rally on Wednesday and whether he hindered the immigration law by saying “he must arrest him.”
New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images) at a campaign event in the Harlem Judicial House in New York on Saturday, June 28th, 2025.
“Look, we don’t need communists in this country, but if we have them, I’ll watch them very closely on behalf of the country,” Trump added.
Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, said, “slammed Trump for his attempts to send a message to all New Yorkers who refuse to hide in the shadows and rejected his remarks.
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Fox News Digital has contacted the Mamdani campaign for comments.
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